Bruce Byfield's blog

Ron Telek’s “Transformation Rattle: Eagle to Wolf”

Ron Telek, the Nisga’a carver, can always be counted on for the unexpected – anything from the disturbingly haunting to the eerily beautiful, and in every form imaginable. I’ve even seen a shaman marionette by him. Our latest acquisition, “Transformation Rattle: Eagle to Wolf” is no exception. Only a handful of other Northwest Coast artists could take a utilitarian object like a rattle and turn it into a sculpture while keeping it functional.

One of the characteristics I’m starting to associate with Telek’s pieces is an unusual degree of three-dimensional awareness in the design. Like many of his pieces, “Transformation Rattle” is impossible to capture fully with a single photo. I took five pictures for our records, and I’m not sure that I shouldn’t have taken a sixth to cover it fully.

The rattle consists of two parts: The rattle, which is the eagle, and the rattle’s base, a lean-looking wolf with a curved tail and, around its neck, a garland of cedar boughs. The rattle rests inside the tail, and can be removed from it. At first glance, you are lucky to notice that it’s a functional rattle. Your first clue is the leather wrapped around the bird’s tail as a hand grip, but even that could simply be part of the surreal sculpture.

The rattle depicts the transformation perhaps two-thirds of the way through. On the right side, the bird’s features are depicted fully, but the left side of the body is mostly blank, with the features indicated by a few indentations, and the wing by the grain of the wood.

Its feet, too, are gone, absorbed into the wolf. Perhaps to indicate the transformation’s incompleteness, the bird’s wing is wrapped around its rounded stomach, as though it is pregnant with itself.

The wolf is more complete, but its lack of claws and teeth or fully-formed rear legs shows that it, too, is an unfinished figure.

Its thinness and slightly rough carving, especially in the comparison with the eagle further suggests the wolf’s incompleteness – and, perhaps, the energy expended to make the transformation.

The fact that the two figures are the same is suggested by the spirit in the middle of the eagle’s right wing and atop the wolf’s head. Furthermore, the wolf’s garland of cedar suggests that this is not a born wolf, but a human – no doubt a shaman – going through these transformations. Supporting this idea is the much larger, more human-looking spirit erupting from the wolf’s back, as well as the fact that, if you look closely, the rear legs are more human than wolf-like.

All this complexity is heightened by Telek’s characteristic attention to the direction of the grain. An employee at the Art of Man Gallery in Victoria told me last week that Telek often carves down until he finds the grain he wants, and, looking at “Transformation Rattle,” I have no trouble believing it. Although both the rattle and its base is carved from a single piece of red cedar (and stop and think about the difficulty of that for a moment), the carving is literally never against the grain. Even on the wolf’s curving tail, the grain moves with the sculpture. And, on the eagle, the round pattern of the grain not only suggests the bird’s body, but creates a semi-abstract form as simple as it is beautiful.

The overall result is a contrast with the tall, rounded shape of the eagle, and the ground-hugging, angular shape of the wolf. It’s an accomplished piece of work, which I’ve place on top the shelves on my computer desk, where I can look up at it periodically, or even take the rattle out for a shake if I feel like it. We’re seriously thinking of mounting it on a lazy susan, so that it can be viewed in its entirety more easily. Meanwhile, I’ve already switched its position around several times in the day since we brought it home so I can admire another aspect of it.